Secondary menu

BMW recalling 1.6 million cars worldwide due to Takata air-bags issue

In a Wednesday announcement, German automaker BMW said that it is issuing a recall of 1.6 million cars across the world, because of issues with air-bags manufactured by Japanese parts manufacturer Takata.

According to the announcement made by BMW, the recall affects 3 Series vehicles which were manufactured between May 1999 and August 2006.

About the air-bag issue prompting the recall, BMW said that the inflators of the passenger-side front air-bags manufactured by Takata can potentially cause injuries as they can break apart during deployment. Under the recall, BMW will replace the air-bags in the affected 3 Series vehicles.

The recall of 1999-2006 model-year 3 Series vehicles by BMW marks an expansion of the company's 2013 recall of 240,000 cars globally for the same `air-bag' issue. However, the latest recall overlaps the regional recall in which BMW's participation was sought by US safety regulators.

In connection with the latest recall, BMW said that the vehicles recalled last year are not part of this campaign. The company said that while the 2013 air-bag recall affected 42,000 cars in the US, the latest recall affects nearly 574,000 in the US, 450,000 cars in Germany, and 189,000 in the UK.

The automaker also described the latest recall as a "precautionary voluntary measure to minimize the risk of the passenger airbag not opening properly."